content/06/23.md
---
pagetitle: What is the moral law?
date: February 19, 2020
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short_date: "0623"
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---
#### Larger Catechism
<span class="q">Q 93.</span> What is the moral law?
<span class="q">A.</span> The moral law is the declaration of the will of God to mankind, directing and binding everyone to personal, perfect, and perpetual conformity and obedience thereunto, in the frame and disposition of the whole man, soul and body,[^fnref:wlc1] and in performance of all those duties of holiness and righteousness which he oweth to God and man:[^fnref:wlc2] promising life upon the fulfilling, and threatening death upon the breach of it.[^fnref:wlc3]
[^fnref:wlc1]: <div class="esv"><h5>Deuteronomy 5:1-3</h5> <div class="esv-text"> <p id="p05005001.04-1"><span class="chapter-num" id="v05005001-1">5:1 </span>And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. The <span class="small-caps">Lord</span> our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the <span class="small-caps">Lord</span> make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today.</p> </div><h5>Deuteronomy 5:31</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p05005031.01-2">But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you the whole commandment and the statutes and the rules that you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.’</p> </div><h5>Deuteronomy 5:33</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p05005033.01-3">You shall walk in all the way that the <span class="small-caps">Lord</span> your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.</p> </div><h5>Luke 10:26-27</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p42010026.01-4">He said to him, <span class="woc">“What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”</span> And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”</p> </div><h5>1 Thessalonians 5:23</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p52005023.01-5">Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.</p> </div><h5>Ephesians 4:24</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p49004024.01-6">and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (<a href="http://www.esv.org" class="copyright">ESV</a>)</p> </div> </div>
[^fnref:wlc2]: <div class="esv"><h5>Luke 1:75</h5> <div class="esv-text"><div class="block-indent"> <p class="line-group" id="p42001075.01-1"><span class="indent"></span>in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.</p> </div> </div><h5>Acts 24:16</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p44024016.01-2">So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.</p> </div><h5>1 Peter 1:15-16</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p60001015.01-3">but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (<a href="http://www.esv.org" class="copyright">ESV</a>)</p> </div> </div>
[^fnref:wlc3]: <div class="esv"><h5>Romans 10:5</h5> <div class="esv-text"> <p id="p45010005.07-1">For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.</p> </div><h5>Galatians 3:10</h5> <div class="esv-text"> <p id="p48003010.07-2">For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”</p> </div><h5>Galatians 3:12</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p48003012.01-3">But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”</p> </div><h5>Romans 5:12</h5> <div class="esv-text"> <p id="p45005012.07-4">Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— (<a href="http://www.esv.org" class="copyright">ESV</a>)</p> </div> </div>